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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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There’s a sense in which this is a consequence of the nuclear family model. When children grow up, they move away and create their own life away from their parents, and the now grandparents end up with very little familial social support. Once they finish working, they have no role in society. In other cultures, the grandparents play a large role helping their children with child rearing and maintaining the household. But nuclear families struggle to involve them in a way that’s sufficient or fulfilling for them. Thus they go off to create new social ties among their cohort.

This creates freedom and individualism for the young, but puts high burdens on working parents, and for the old it means that you’ve got only a shadow of the role that the grandparent generation traditionally had.

n other cultures, the grandparents play a large role helping their children with child rearing and maintaining the household. But nuclear families struggle to involve them in a way that’s sufficient or fulfilling for them.

I'd rather say the main factor in that case is delayed family formation. When that becomes the social norm, it means most people are too old and frail to help looking after their grandchildren by the time they have any.

And the flip side is that most grandparents are too old and frail to contribute much to the household by the time they have grandchildren.

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